Teh Returnening
by Raymond-legends
Summary: A post-epilogue to "Hey Specejerk" by @hecallsmehischild on tumblr, because i don't know how to leave well enough alone. Well, at least Zim and I have that in common. Enjoy!
1. A bumpy start

"THAT," Zim yelled, kicking down the door to his base, "Was the biggest waste of my time since the _sneeple boy._" He sneered at the memory as Dib stumbled in behind him.

"So it wasn't a hit, big whoop. Hey, at least the kangaroo got something out of it," he sighed. Dib caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall. Quarter past 3. He stared gloomily at the stairs separating him from the room he'd claimed in the base, then tossed his body like a sack of potatoes onto the living room couch.

"Yes, go ahead and waste your time with _unconsciousness, _of course I can write our report!" Zim hissed. Being met only with snores, he slumped in front of the television. "COMPUTER!"

Dib groaned in his sleep.

Zim grimaced. "Computer?" he said slightly quieter, "download the footage from tonight's hunt. I want to make sure I didn't miss anything."

"no." said the computer.

"ugh. _Pleeeeeaaseeee_?"

"Oh, uh. Huh. I'm flattered that was your second try, but I actually can't," said the computer, "You're out of storage."

"WHAT!?" Zim winced at the volume, but Dib was unfettered. "How could you be out of storage? You're supposed to be the best technology the Irken Empire has to offer!"

"Sigh. Ever since the, ahem, Florpus Incident, _you_ told me to stop deleting things without your say so. But you never wanted to sit down and actually sort through it, so now my memory is clogged with 12 years of 50 cameras worth of security footage. Asshole."

"Oh. Well, uh…" he paused, "start deleting things then. Go on."

"No way. You want free space? Do it yourself. I'm not getting yelled at again just because you decided every season of "Floopsy Still Boops Shoopsy" was "important tactical information.""

"It's an underrated masterpiece before its time!" he insists. "But, fine. I will take the liberty of deleting unimportant data, because obviously you can't tell the difference between art and Garbage!"

The computer pulls up the storage interface. Zim gulps. "I shall start at the beginning! I'm sure there are tons of old "planetary conquest" schemes sitting around that I have no use for! Zim is an excellent organizer! Perhaps I will be done with this before the Dib finishes recharging."

~4 HOURS LATER~

"Uggggghhhhh this is taking forever! What is all this useless garbage! How could I have thought any of these cockamamie schemes would ever work? "Cheezo dust in the atmosphere?" "Taping bees together?" Preposterous! And why do I still have a system backup from _11 years ago_?"

"Hmm," said the computer, "That… shouldn't be there. I always delete the previous backups after making a new one. I didn't know that existed."

"Well you obviously forgot!" Zim retorted.

"I'm a computer, I can't _forget_. I must not have made it."

"Well, if you didn't make it, who did?" Zim carefully maneuvered to the file to inspect it. '_Created 8-24-2001' _it read. '_open backup? Y/N' _Cautiously, Zim poked the blinking Y. The screen deadened for a moment, before busting back to life with a flurry of sound and color. Zim flailed around, grasping for the volume switch. Luckily for him, Dib was still catatonic from their stake-out. _That human could sleep through an Organic Sweep,_ he thought to himself.

Whatever Zim expected in the age-old file, it wasn't… whatever this was. A wildly tossed-together compilation of security footage, human television and food products flashed across the screen in bright, garish colors. It took him a moment to realize exactly what he was seeing. "Hah, I remember that day!" Zim smiled. "Gir shoved his horrible brain into the mainframe and rampaged across town, nearly blowing our cover!" His anger quickly dissipated until all that was left was a hollow feeling. "heh, heheh… silly, Gir. This must have auto-saved before I got him out."

It had been 5 years. Five years without the little robot menace, always thwarting his plans, destroying his stuff, filling the base with his… defectiveness! Not a day passed where he doesn't miss him. The base felt so empty now, even with the Dib wandering in and out like he owned the place. Oftentimes, he would sit for weeks on end, clicking between channels, desperate to feel like he was just out for the day, like he'd be back any second with some junk food or a dead thing. Dib sometimes tried to break him out of his moods, but it was no use. Gir would know how, though. He would cover him in nachos, sing a horrible song, or just sit with him until he felt up to conquering again. He had tried everything to bring him back. But every time Zim tried to repair or rebuild him he was either a lifeless husk or a correctly functioning SIR. He'd given up a long time ago. To recreate the perfect amount of broken that made Gir, well, Gir was impossible. But somehow… here he was? All his thoughts and feelings, strange mannerisms and broken code preserved perfectly, like an insect in amber. _Maybe..._

Possessed, he stumbled to the couch, frantically shaking Dib awake.

"hhggghhh fuck off, Dad," he mumbled, "I'm not goin to fuckin coledge…"

"DIB."

"Wha- oh, Zim. What's up buddy?" he moaned, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

"Get up. We leave in five minutes." he ordered.

"Huh? Where are we going?" asked Dib, trying very hard to be a supportive friend.

"Grab a shovel. I'll explain on the way."


	2. A Glimmer of hope

"Remind me what this 'plan' of yours is again?" Dib sighed, scooping out another shovelful of dirt. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and they'd been at this for what felt like hours already. A light dusting of snow powdered the ground of the small forest clearing, frigid air freezing the dirt into rocky clumps. Needless to say, it wasn't prime gravedigging weather.

"I understand your meat-brain is not yet functioning at capacity, so I will explain it again. Please try to understand this time." Zim coughed. He fought to hide it, but the cold was doing a number on him. ('Cold blooded?' Dib mentally noted.) "Deep within the confines of my computer, I discovered an old copy of Gir's internal software. But! If I'm going bring him back, I'll need to build a new, non-broken body to upload him into. For that, I need to understand perfectly what went wrong when he… you know."

It was still difficult to talk about. He hated the fact that he couldn't save him, and he hated even more that he didn't understand what the Tallest did to him. Despite, or perhaps because, of Gir's defects, he was one of the most complex machines Zim ever worked with. Perhaps if he'd been a functioning SIR, the kill code would have been easy to target and reverse, but unfortunately, the inner workings of Gir were such a horrendous free-for-all, not even death worked properly.

*KLUNK*

Dib stopped short as his shovel struck a solid surface. "Got him." He called. "Hey spacejerk, since I've been doing all the digging for the last hour, I'm gonna let you handle the giant metal box, okay?"

Zim was broken from his semi-trance and reached out a hand to help his partner out of the hole, who flumped on the ground adjacent to it. He hopped into the makeshift grave and pushed aside the remaining dirt off the metal casket. His Pak legs started buzzing to work, torching the edges of the box before prying the lid open. He froze, gazing lovingly on the face of his fallen companion, locked away for so long. A well of tears threatened to spill over, but he willed them away. He gingerly grasped the robot, lifting it from its rest, and then chucked it out of the grave where it crashed to the surface with a hollow "Clang."

"Welp! That's enough of that!" he declared, springing himself up. He tucked the broken bot under his arm and sauntered back down the scraggly trail through the wood, whistling as he went.

"Yeah you go, I, uh, I'll catch up with you…" Dib groaned from the dirt pile, which it seemed he had no intention to move from anytime soon. He wasn't even wearing a proper coat.

* * *

"Test 34!" Zim yelled as he yanked a comically over-sized lever to the on position, sending bolts of lightning careening every which way. After a few moments the lightshow died, along with all the lights in the base and the greater metropolitan area.

"ZIIIIIIIM!" Shrieked a voice from upstairs.

"ZIM WILL FIX IT! HOLD THE HORSE OF PREMATURE JUDEMENT!" Zim was starting to get a hang of earth idioms, for the most part. Not exactly a cornerstone of 'human communication' like most of the two's lessons, but it was fun to watch him fuck em up. He stormed up the emergency stairs of the base and slammed open the fuse box. The sixth one blown this week. It was becoming apparent that "more power," despite being the solution to most problems, would not fix this one. No matter how many gigavolts he ran through the little robot, he kept stubbornly refusing to be alive. _Oh Well_, he thought. He'll just replace the fuse and- crap. The extra fuses were upstairs. That meant facing Dib.

He'd been extremely irritable for the last few days because, _apparently_, extended exposure to cold was an open house sign for Germs. Zim was able to shed the virus in a few _horrible_ hours thanks to his Superior Irken Biology, but Dib was less fortunate. His smelly meat body had been cocooned in a heated blanket since Zim went back and retrieved him from the woods, and he was quite cranky about it being periodically turned off by his, quote, "Frankenstein shit."

One frustratingly long spiral staircase later, he faceplanted the door open and dragged his noodly legs to the supply cabinet.

"You're the worst, you know that?" came a scratchy mumble from deep in a pile of blankets. The only sign of human life on the couch was a growing pile of empty mugs that were once vessels for boiled leaf-water, though it seemed he was now drinking straight from the pot.

"Careful, Dib, if I didn't know better, I might think you're drifting dangerously close to _chair territory_," Zim tisked.

"Bite me." The blankets responded.

"Hmm. Request formally denied," He grinned.

"You're killing me you know. One day I'll be dead, and it'll be your fault."

Zim chuckled. "Ah yes, I often forget your terrible allergy to my brilliant wordplay and stunning personality. How sad it is that I must restrain myself from my true potential in your presence."

"Yeah, yeah, you can mourn my deadly intolerance to smartasses later, now please fix the heat," said Dib, wiggling his head and arms free from his pillowy fortress.

"Nyah," said Minimoose. He'd prepared a fresh pot of tea. How considerate! Dib accepted the pot gratefully and poured the scalding liquid directly into his mouth in a way that was both gross and nasty. The horror show of human illness was obviously not stopping anytime soon, so Zim moved on to matters more deserving of his attention. Like making sure Dib wouldn't kill him.

* * *

"Test 91," Zim sighed. He halfheartedly began pressing buttons and flipping switches across a panel. For a moment the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree, and a glimmer of hope entered the Irken's eyes. But, just like all the other tests, they all faded within a second. Crestfallen, he sulked off his chair and over to the metal examination table. "I don't understand…" he said softly. "Why aren't you alive?"

His pity party was cut off suddenly by the sound of the base elevator screeching to a halt. "Hey!" said Dib, "I, uh, oh… sorry, did I interrupt?"

"No, I was just finishing up my horrible failing. What is it that you require of Zim?"

"heh, oh, right! Watch this! I've been practicing all morning, and I think I finally got the hang of this trick, watch!" he enthusiastically produced a fanned deck of playing cards. "PICK. A card." He grinned.

"Why."

"Ugh, its part of the trick, okay?"

"Fine, fine. If it amuses you." He picks a card. Two of human organs.

"And now, I will shuffle the deck! Aaaaaaaand is… THIS your card!"

Seven of diamonds. "No."

Queen of shovels. "No."

"Jack of clubs?" he tried.

"That's the black one with the three circles on a stick?"

"Yes!"

"Then no."

"Then why'd you- Oh never mind," said Dib, clearly disappointed. "I really thought I had it…"

"Do not be upset!" Zim said encouragingly. "I'm sure your telepathic abilities will manifest in time. But until then we can wallow in failure together."

"Yeah, I think I'll pass." Dib eyed the lifeless robot. "I just don't understand the problem…"

"The problem is that he's not alive, Dib."

"I _know_ that. I just… you fix shit all the time! How is Gir harder to fix than a copy machine?"

"Let me explain it this way. What would be the first step you would take when fixing one of earth's "copy" ""machines.""

"I dunno, find a manual?" Dib shrugged.

"EXACTLY!" he yelled. "Ahem. Gir just happens to be a ..._custom_ model. He's so unique that there's never been a SIR just like him! So I have no blueprints, no schematics, and no model number, for a machine that was ALREADY BROKEN! And to top it off, the Tallests' virus was so thorough that I have no idea which circuits were fried because of their EVIL and which were corroded by rotting earth meats!"

He either realized his crescendo in volume or saw Dib cower slightly, because he stopped and took a deep breath, breaking eye contact. "The only way I could fix Gir was if I had him here already. I just don't see a point…" He missed his friend. He was angry at the Tallests, angry at Gir for being gone, angry at himself for being a failure. Perhaps he should have let sleeping dogs lie.

But as Zim slipped into a depressive spiral, Dib was staring into the middle distance with such intensity you could practically see the math floating around his head in a meme-like fashion. "Zim…" he started with awe, "…Do you remember the piggies?"


	3. Home Invasion

CHAPTER 3

"NO. NO. NOOOOOO. Where is iiiIIIITTTT?" Zim cried furiously as he swam through the musty junk heap.

"Nothin' over here. Just computer parts, junk mail, and what I _really_ hope is a plastic skeleton," called Dib from another corner of the basement.

"Hahaha! I forgot about him!" Zim chuckled as he leapt back into the sea of various odds and ends like a rich duck. _It had to be down here somewhere_, he thought. The bottom most floor of the base was once a storage room for scrap projects but had long ago mutated into a wasteland of anything Zim didn't want to deal with. That list consisted of 13 years' worth of broken inventions, discarded experiments, dead rodents and, hopefully, an in-tact time machine.

Without warning, Zim was yanked out of the garbage by the antenna and lifted eye level to Dib. "Alright, this isn't getting us anywhere. Can't you just build a new one? Don't you keep blueprints at least?"

Zim flailed like a feral cat until he was dropped on top of the pile. "HAH! Heuuumans and their 'blueprints,'" he chortled, "I simply _remember_ everything important. Obviously."

"So you remember how to build it?" Dib deadpanned.

"I…" he paused. "I can figure it out! I did it before, all I need is… uhhhhhhh… metal? Yes, metal! And some gargantium, no, irrasplodisium! Wait… Doh! Curse my prior self's overzealous self-confidence! Wait, yes! That's- oh no, that can't be it. Maybe-"

While Zim argued with his own memory, Dib plopped himself face down into the garbage, resigning himself to having to listen to this for at least the next 12 hours. But before he could completely zone out, something shiny caught his eye, mere inches from his face. And then Dib got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

"Hold that thought Zim. I don't think we have to build that time machine after all…"

"Heh?" said Zim.

The dim basement light caught Dibs glasses, turning them into mirrors as wide toothy grin spread across his face. He clutched in his hand a fist sized ring of missing keys, upon which hung an employee ID card for Membrane Labs.

"I think I know someone who might have one."

* * *

The plan was simple. Step one: Invade.

This… actually went surprisingly well. God knows Membrane never changes his fuckin locks, don't even mention re-inforcing cyber security. But what the storage facility lacks in locks it more than makes up for in surveillance. Every square foot of the premises is swept hourly by cameras, but if you know the schedules, which Dib did, and could loop the cameras, which Zim could, it was as easy as just walking in. One painfully long elevator ride later, Dib swiped the card at the deep storage gate, and it opened on command. With a flourish he motioned Zim to go first, and they both proudly marched in the most dangerous warehouse on the planet.

Step two: Get in, get the machine, and get out. Don't take anything else to avoid suspicion.

_"Oh my god"' _thought Dib, staring starry-eyed at the pure magnitude of science, "_I am going to take _**absolutely everything**."

Matter disintegrators, star exploders, two different models of cloning devices- boy was Dib glad Zim never bothered to break in here. Shelves stuffed with devices deemed "unfit for public access" seemed to stretch for miles. The two decided to split up in order to cover more ground, taking anything not nailed down. Whatever organization system the bunker had, it was unintelligible to the both of them. They trusted each other completely.

Lost in an area seemingly designated for moose repellants, Dib suddenly stopped. What tripped him off, he didn't know; a change in the air. A ghost of a footstep. But reflex kicked in and he sprang forward, grabbing a net gun from a low shelf and firing instinctively behind him, smiling when he heard a familiar grunt. "You've gotten rusty," he smirked at the figure struggling against unbreakable ropes.

"Oh great. You talk again." said Gaz.

"Heh, no thanks to you," he retorted. He casually leaned on the gun and collected what he'd dropped in the fray. "So, how's home? Been enjoying the peace and quiet?"

"Hardly," Gaz spat. "Ever since you pulled your little stunt, Dads been crazier than ever. After he lost his favorite punching bag, I've been getting the brunt of his so-called "parenting.""

"Huh. Who coulda thunk," he said. Man, if that isn't karma, Dib doesn't know what is. Despite his better judgement, he's actually kind of enjoying this. "You graduated, right? Whatcha been up to? Beat 'Ultimate Vampire Piggies' yet?"

"Actually, I'm a scientist now. Guess I had enough brain cells to figure out I should just play along."

"Oh? How's that working out for you?"

"About how you'd expect," she sneered. "It's so _boring, _I'm running of caffeine pills just to stay awake." She finally stopped struggling, realizing it's a lost cause. "…he doesn't even let me _game_ anymore, says its "unbefitting of a young scientist" or something. Down here's the only place within the shock perimeter where my stupid brain-chip can't get a signal. I don't even know how it works. He can read my thoughts or something, so whenever I try to do anything _interesting_ it electrocutes me."

"Interesting," Dib said, "I didn't think we were the same size but it looks like the shoes on the other foot now, huh?" he slipped the grapple gun into a seemingly endless coat pocket.

"Ugh," she said, "Whatever. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you fucked off to play 'spin the bottle' with Zim."

"First, gross, so gross, what the fuck. Second, what does it look like, I'm robbing the old man blind!" He chuckled. Gaz rolled her eyes. "What? It's not like I'm in the will."

"You're even more of an idiot than I thought if you think anything down here works." She grumbled, "This is just where Dad puts the shit he doesn't wanna admit he was too dumb to fix."

"Eh," Dib shrugged, "I'll figure it out, I'm twice the inventor he'll ever be. Plus, I have a secret weapon…" he grabbed a pair of heavy metal clacking balls off a shelf and shoved them into his pocket with the rest of his loot.

"Please spare me the details of your boyfriend's engineering prowess," Gaz whined.

"He's not my _boyfriend_," he said, dry gagging, "he's like 400 years old and smells like a severed foot that was left in Listerine for a month!"

"Yeah, I don't care." She grimaced. After a beat she spoke again, quietly. "You know? As dumb as it was, I almost envied you."

"How-what? Why? How could you possibly envy me? Was it the daily paralysis? The forced mutism? Oh, how about the maddening certainty I was crazy?" he burst.

She gritted her teeth, then said bitterly, "You escaped, didn't you?"

Dib was stunned for a moment. It occurred to him for the first time that he had never thought about what happened to Gaz after he left. He felt guilty. Like he had abandoned her somehow. Not like she didn't give him reasons to. She must've seen his stupor, and looked away. She mumbled something he didn't catch. "…What?"

"I'm _sorry_, okay?" she blurted. "I treated you like garbage our whole lives because I thought it would make Dad love me more. Or like, at all, I guess."

It was at this point the growing pit in Dib's stomached dropped. It… it sounded like she was crying. His sister, who he'd never seen cry. Ever, not even when they were children.

"I was horrible. I saw everything dad put you through but by the time it got as bad as it did… it's not like I could've done anything about it anyway." She took a deep breath. "I didn't know if I'd ever see you again, get the chance to apologize, I-" Another uncharacteristic sob caught itself in her throat. "I was _seventeen_, Dib. I was only thinking about myself when we should've been in it together…"

The real gravity of their horrific childhood must have just hit Dib now, because he started laughing. Not a joyful laugh but something more somber, like the brain is suddenly confronted by a truth so obvious that its obliviousness to the situation was almost humorous. "I'm sorry, I," he laughed some more, then found a hint of a tear in his own eye, "we really are some fucked up kids, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so…" she conceded.

An idea sprung into his mind- one he wouldn't have even humored a year ago. One that was, as ideas go, the equivalent of shooting a hornet's nest with a machine gun from orbit. "…Do you wanna get out of here?"

Somehow, she pounced on him, free of her bindings, holding his shoulders, her face inches from his. "More. Then. ANYTHING."

He shoved her off, "Alright then, its settled." He started pacing. "Getting you out shouldn't be a problem, there's plenty of room in my knapsack, and it's not like there's internet in a pocket dimension. I'm just a bit worried about the chip… I'm sure Zim could remove it but,"

"Oh no, you are NOT letting _Zim _pick at my _brain_. No way. Not happening." She insisted.

"Well we could ask _Dad_ to remove it, but I'm not sure he'd be the most receptive to the idea," He remarked.

"Ugh." She considered her options. "When did I get this desperate?" she lamented. She conceded, though and agreed to climb into the "bag of holding" as he called it, the fuckin nerd. Tabletop was never really her thing, even if she had had friends to play it with.

"Oh, wait!" Dib objected the moment she went fully inside, pulling her head out by her hair just enough to stick out, "You know this place, where would I find a time machine?" he asked.

"I hate you with the rage of a million suns. Row 19, column 67. Straight past the toasters, can't miss it." She grumbled.

"Thanks Gaz!" he squeed. "Now, where did Zim end up…?"

He barely had time to ponder out loud before an explosion rang out halfway across the bunker. _'Yup,'_ thought Dib_, 'there he is.' _

"Let's get the fuck out of here before Zim kills all three of us."

"That's probably a good idea," she remarks. "…I missed you."

"Sap."

"Bastard."

They both knew it meant 'I love you'.


End file.
